Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Murder

Murder (mûr"dẽr) , noun

[Old English morder, morther, Anglo-Saxon moreor, from more murder; akin to Dutch moord, Old Saxon more, German, Danish, & Swedish mord, Icelandic more, Gothic maúrþr, OSlav. mrēti to die, Lithuanian mirti, Welsh marw dead, Latin mors, mortis, death, mori, moriri, to die, Greek broto`s (for mroto`s) mortal, 'a`mbrotos immortal, Sanskrit mr to die, mrta death. r105. Compare Amaranth, Ambrosia, Mortal.]

The offense of killing a human being with malice prepense or aforethought, express or implied; intentional and unlawful homicide.
Mordre will out. — Chaucer
The killing of their children had, in the account of God, the guilt of murder, as the offering them to idols had the guilt of idolatry. — Locke
Slaughter grows murder when it goes too far. — Dryden

Murder in the second degree, in most jurisdictions, is a malicious homicide committed without a specific intention to take life.

Murder (mûr"dẽrd) , transitive verb

[Old English mortheren, murtheren, Anglo-Saxon myrerian; akin to Old High German murdiren, Gothic maúrþrjan. See Murder, n.]

1.
To kill with premediated malice; to kill (a human being) willfully, deliberately, and unlawfully. See Murder, n.
2.
To destroy; to put an end to.
[Canst thou] murder thy breath in middle of a word? — Shakespeare
3.
To mutilate, spoil, or deform, as if with malice or cruelty; to mangle; as, to murder the king's English.